Wyoming
Cold, Wet, Windy And Snow — Welcome To Springtime In Wyoming
The first full week of May will be a mix of cold, wet, wind and even some snow around Wyoming.
Wyomingites woke up to cold temperatures and precipitation Monday morning, with snow reported in several areas. According to Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day, it’s a perfect storm of spring weather that’s pretty typical for springtime here.
“It’s a classic Wyoming spring,” he said. “Rain, snow, wind, thunder, lightning — all those things are happening right now.”
The first full week of May will be cold, wet and windy in the Cowboy State, but the devil is in the details, and those details will likely bring good news to dry areas still recovering from drought, Day said.
Watches, Warnings And Outlooks
As of Monday morning, the National Weather Service had issued a watch, warning or outlook for almost every region of Wyoming.
Winter Weather Advisories were in effect in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the Bighorn Mountains and the Wind River and Wyoming ranges. Old Faithful in Yellowstone could receive as much as 6 inches of snow through Wednesday.
A High Wind Warning is in effect for nearly all of southern Wyoming until at least Tuesday evening. Cheyenne, Laramie and Rock Springs could experience winds as high as 65 mph.
Meanwhile, the NWS issued a Hazardous Weather Outlook for most of central Wyoming and the Bighorn Basin, anticipating wind gusts up to 80 mph in those “wind-prone areas.”
Day said Wyomingites can expect Monday’s conditions to persist through the workweek.
“The area of the state that will have the highest impact will be the northern counties, especially the northeast along the Interstate 90 corridor,” he said. “Gillette, Buffalo and communities in the northeast corner are likely to get 1 to 2 inches of rain and wet snow combined. If you add the wet snow to the rain that’s going to fall, we’ll easily see a foot or more in the Bighorns and heavy snowfall in the Black Hills.”
The Bighorn Basin received plenty of rain over the weekend, and more is likely throughout the week. Day said it’ll get drier the farther south one goes, but there could be more wind to contend with.
“As you go farther south, the precipitation is lighter, but the wind is going to be more of a factor,” he said. “The heavier moisture gets down to Casper, Douglas, Lander and Riverton. The I-80 corridor will get wet, but not as much.”
Persistent Fun Through Friday
Wyoming’s smorgasbord of spring weather will undoubtedly create hazardous conditions for drivers on the state’s highways. Day said Wyoming could and should expect to encounter anything and everything on the roads.
“If you’re traveling over the next four to five days, you could experience just about everything from rain to snow to fog to very strong winds,” he said. “The mountain passes are going to be pretty rough with the snow up in the mountains.”
Day’s analysis of current weather patterns suggests there won’t be much relief throughout the week. Wyoming will most likely stay wet and windy through Friday.
“The worst of the weather will continue through Friday,” he said. “Then we’ll start to see moderating temperatures this weekend.”
The Colder, The Better?
Many Wyomingites might find cold precipitation raining on their springtime parades. But Day said even a warm spring shower is historically too much to hope for in the Cowboy State.
“You don’t get warm rain in Wyoming in May,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen.”
If there’s a silver lining in this week’s weather, it’s that it will bring much-needed moisture to the northeast corner of Wyoming. Even with numerous spring snowstorms and rain showers, northeast Wyoming stayed mostly dry, while its winter snowpack was depleted to a fraction of its 30-year average.
Day explained that getting enough moisture is only part of the solution to an arid problem. That’s why the chilly temperatures blanketing northeast Wyoming should be welcomed.
“What’s good about this weather pattern is it’s not coming all at once,” he said. “It’s going to get spread out in waves. And when it’s cool like this, you don’t lose much moisture to evaporation. The ground soaks it in well. So yeah, this will be really good for those northeast counties.”
Gloomy Until Mother’s Day
While it isn’t an official meteorological phenomenon, Day’s oft-stated mantra for Wyoming’s spring weather is that winter doesn’t historically go away until after Mother’s Day. But with Mother’s Day less than a week away, he isn’t quite ready to put out a forecast for this year’s celebration of mom on Sunday.
“I don’t want to overpromise a nice weekend at this point,” he said. “We’ll have to see how things play out before we can get a precise weekend forecast.”
May is historically one of the wettest months of the year for Wyoming. Day said the latter half of May is when temperatures start to trend warmer and the days stay sunny.
Wyomingites will have to endure another week of windy, wintry weather before summer-like conditions set in. Day said that’s just the cold, harsh reality of spring in the Cowboy State.
“May is normally one of the wettest months of the year, and I think it’s going to be tracking very close to the averages,” he said. “Everyone’s ready for the warmer weather, and we will get some warm days soon. But we must suffer through this first.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Two men were detained in Wyoming in connection with a fatal shooting at a downtown Salt Lake hotel that killed one man.
Carlos Chee, 23, and Chino Aguilar, 21, were both wanted for first-degree felony murder after the victim, identified as Christian Lee, 32, was found dead in a room at the Springhill Suites near 600 South and 300 West.
According to warrants issued for their arrest, Chee and Aguilar met with Lee and another woman at the hotel to sell marijuana. During the alleged drug deal, Aguilar allegedly shot and killed Lee after he tried to grab at his gun.
MORE | Shootings
Investigators said they found Lee dead in the room upon arrival, as well as a single shell casing on the floor and a small amount of marijuana on the television stand.
The woman told investigators she had met Chee on a dating app and that he agreed to come to the hotel to sell her marijuana. She had been hanging out with him in the room, which Lee rented for her to use, when Lee asked them to leave. Lee was then shot and killed following a brief confrontation.
Chee and Aguilar allegedly fled the scene in a 2013 Toyota Camry with a Texas license plate that was later found outside of Rock Springs, Wyoming just a few hours later.
The two men were taken into custody and detained at the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office.
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ROCK SPRINGS, Wyoming (KUTV) — A man was hospitalized with critical injuries after he was reportedly shot by a deputy responding to reports of a disturbance.
Deputies with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office and officers with the Rock Springs Police Department responded to the Sweetwater Heights apartment complex in the 2100 block of Century Boulevard just after 4 a.m. on Monday to investigate reports of a disturbance involving an armed individual.
Information that dispatch received indicated that the individual had shot himself. When officials arrived, they found the individual on the balcony of an upstairs apartment “who appeared to have a gunshot wound consistent with the initial report,” a press release states.
MORE | Officer-Involved Shooting
During the encounter, a deputy discharged their weapon and struck the individual.
Emergency medical personnel rendered aid, and the individual was transported to an area hospital in critical condition.
No law enforcement officers or members of the public were injured during the incident.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation will conduct an independent investigation.
The deputy who fired their weapon was placed on administrative leave per standard protocol.
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by Maggie Mullen, WyoFile
Albert Sommers, former Wyoming Speaker of the House, announced Thursday he will attempt to reclaim a seat he formerly held for more than a decade in the statehouse.
“Leadership matters,” Sommers, a lifelong cattle rancher, wrote in a press release. “Right now, the Wyoming House is too often focused on division instead of solutions. We need steady, effective leadership that solves problems—not rhetoric and political theater.”
Voters in 2013 first elected Sommers to House District 20, which encompasses Sublette County and an eastern section of Lincoln County. As a lawmaker, Sommers largely focused on health care, education and water issues. Over six terms, he rose through the ranks, serving in leadership positions and chairing committees focused on education funding and broadband.
In his announcement, Sommers highlighted his legislative work to establish funding for rural hospitals, prioritize “responsible property tax relief,” as well as the creation of the Wyoming Colorado River Advisory Committee within the State Engineer’s Office, “to ensure our water users have a voice in critical decisions affecting the Green River Valley,” he wrote.
As speaker, Sommers was a frequent target of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus as well as the DC-based State Freedom Caucus Network, even getting the attention of Fox News and other national, conservative news outlets. They often accused Sommers of not being conservative enough, and criticized him for keeping bills in “the drawer,” which has long been code for the unilateral power a speaker has to kill legislation by holding it back. (The practice of holding bills has been used to a much higher degree under Freedom Caucus leadership.)
In 2023, Sommers used the speaker’s powers to kill bills related to a school voucher program, banning instruction on gender and sexual orientation from some classrooms and criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors. At the time, Sommers defended his decision to hold back “bills that are unconstitutional, not well vetted, duplicate bills or debates, and bills that negate local control, restrict the rights of people or risk costly litigation financed by the people of Wyoming.”
He reiterated that philosophy and defended his record in his Thursday campaign announcement.
“I am a common-sense conservative who believes in getting things done. I support our core industries—oil and gas, ranching, and tourism—and I will continue to fight for the people and natural resources of Sublette County and LaBarge. I am pro-gun, pro-life, pro-family, and pro-education,” Sommers wrote. “I also take seriously my oath to uphold the U.S. and Wyoming Constitutions, which means I didn’t support bills that violated those constitutions. I read bills carefully and I voted accordingly.”
Following his term as speaker, Sommers stepped away from the House to run for Senate District 14 in 2024. He lost in the primary election to political newcomer Laura Pearson, a Freedom Caucus-endorsed Republican from Kemmerer, who also won in the general election. Her Senate win coincided with the Freedom Caucus winning control of the House.
“That race didn’t go my way, and I respected the outcome,” Sommers said in a Thursday press release. But “the direction of the Wyoming House,” since then, he said, has “raised serious concerns.”
Sommers pointed to the Freedom Caucus and its budget proposal, which, despite a funding surplus, included major cuts and funding denials. Ahead of the session, the caucus said its sights were set on shrinking spending and limiting the growth of government.
In his Thursday press release, Sommers criticized “decisions that cut food assistance for vulnerable children, reduced business opportunities, slashed funding to the University of Wyoming, eliminated resources for cheatgrass control, denied raises for state employees, and removed positions critical to protecting Wyoming’s water rights.”
Most of those proposals did not make it into the final budget bill.
Sommers also pointed to a controversy that dominated the 2026 session after a Teton County conservative activist handed out campaign checks to lawmakers on the House floor. Lawmakers in both chambers unanimously voted to ban such behavior before a House Special Investigative Committee found that the exchange did not violate the Wyoming Constitution nor did it amount to legislative misconduct. A Laramie County Sheriff’s Office criminal investigation is still underway.
But “controversies like ‘Checkgate’ undermined public trust, and decorum in the House deteriorated,” Sommers said.
“Transparency and accessibility will remain central to how I serve,” Sommers said. “As I’ve done before, I will provide regular updates on legislation, seek your input, and clearly explain my votes.”
Incumbent bows out
Rep. Mike Schmid, R-La Barge, currently represents House District 20, but announced Thursday morning that he would not seek reelection.
“It has truly been an honor to serve as your State Representative for House District 20. When I first ran, I had hoped to serve up to three terms and continue building on what I learned during my first term,” Schmid wrote in a Facebook post. “But life can change your priorities. Over the past year, my family has gone through some difficult times. My wife is dealing with serious health issues, and the death of my brother, Jim, just a few short weeks ago have made it clear to me where I need to spend my time.”
In March, Bill Winney, a perennial candidate and former nuclear submarine commander, announced he would run for House District 20.
The official candidate filing period opens May 14.
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
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